The Unbounded Known Wiki
The 13th Band of the Unbounded Known “Cartography, it seems, is older than the Esotery. Of course, this information is provided for the Common Good, but we can make no assurances as to its accuracy – either at the time these maps were allegedly created or in the current age. It is peculiar that Elihu notioned this the 13th Band; other texts limn him a particularly careful scholar, but to my knowledge, we have no texts referencing any other Bands. Alas, this is the true work of research: dusting off old pages to find the gaps between the lines.” - Qylvenera Sorstryx, Esotery Associate Deputy Librarian, Historiographic and Comparative Studies Department Chair, Recipient of the Clanktenny R. Gimbizzle Endowed Fellowship in Informancy From the maelstrom of fire and storms off the coast of Gegania to the runed bulwarks of the Elder Empire of Byan, the 13th Band is, apparently, just one corner of a much larger world. Very little of what is known is well-catalogued, and if it is, those secrets are well-guarded and used to plumb the endless depths of intrigue between and among its many peoples. The World Map linked here is the most complete, but by no means infallible, collection of geographic information of the Unbounded Known. Brief Introductory Rundown (This section is massive WIP but is meant to provide a quick review of recent events worth knowing as well as each major faction, place, or people in the world.) Timeline of Major Recent Events * ~400 years ago: ** The Askrelli Tribes begin their exodus from the land of the Drakosthai, leaving behind a land plunged into darkness. * ~300 years ago ** Seastone Isle becomes home to the Pirate's Collective. ** The Drakosthai Civil War erupts as houses allied with draconic usurpers clash with houses hell-bent on maintaining their freedom. ** The Damosthene colony declares its independence from Drakosthai. * ~200 years ago: ** The Askrelli Tribes enter the far reaches of the Elder Empire of Byan; their forward assault is slow but unhindered. * ~ 60 years ago: ** The Askrelli Tribes reach Dusvail Marshplain, and their relentless crawl through the outer territories of Byan is halted by fierce resistance from the Free City of Bothelm. * ~ 50 years ago: ** Gegan and Damosthene forces reluctantly cooperate to quell demonic attacks against both nations. ** Itan's Crystal Keep appears in the center of the Manwilds. * ~30 years ago: ** The Night Itan Stole the Stars - Itan the Clearminded centralizes control over Manwild resistance groups by scrambling the night sky. ** The Eye of Eternity begins spewing monstrous creatures that terrorize Gegania. * ~20 years ago: ** Itan's domination of the Manwilds is complete. The Dominion of the Just is born. *** Speaker-Queen of the City of S'angalla negotiates a secret treaty with Itan to maintain partial independence. * 12 years ago: ** The Treaty of Fultimini Pass is signed between Damosthai and Gegania. This begins an era of greatness for both nations. * 7 years ago: ** Alnas the Ordained, Elder of House Dorsopheles, disappears into the Salted Sands of Gegania. ** Queen Maeve of the Unseeled Territories rebuffs Itan's advances toward war by placing her own start into the night sky. ** The first Black Orcs are seen in Southern Byan. * 5 years ago: ** Stormsalt is demonstrated to be capable of holding arcane power for long periods of time by Damosthene researchers. ** Puck, the brother of King Oberron, does not return from a diplomatic voyage to Byan. *** Arwwn Paendreg and her husband Artur are deputized into Wotan's Wyld Host in the search for Puck. ** The Free City of Bothelm declares itself neutral in the hostilities between the Askrelli Tribes and Byan. *** Neither party is convinced, and this only heightens tension. * Last year ** An entire tradefleet from Damosthai disappears. Seastone Isle disavows its involvement. ** Twins Elders of House Stegna, Jocasta and Jovan, are assassinated in route to their prefecture in Fort Lhasal. ** The Ghostwise Gang, a criminal organization in the Tikeoustan city of Reason, ousts rival gang, the Skinfolk, in a week of violence and riot. *** Itan is not to be found in his Crystal Keep to render judgment. His Senses hold hundreds of public executions. ** A large pillar of light erupts in the night sky, originating from somewhere in the former Drakosthai homelands. *** Three days later, the light fades. Rumors of the discovery of an ancient weapon or the invention of one spread across the Band. ** An envoy from the Neath brokers for the largest trade of Stormsalt in Gegan history; Gegan Elders credit Queen Maeve with overseeing negotiation of the terms. Elegast pledges to protect the convoy with his Order of Green Knights; in exchange, Gegania releases Morrigan from captivity. = Overview of Major Places and Nations * Gegania - Land of the giants' children. ** Gegania is a country full of makers - smiths, builders, crafters; Gegans do not limit their craft or pursuits to only those which they can forge with their hands, but this mentality is pervasive in every facet of their society and culture. ** Politically, Gegania is ruled by the Seven Houses of the Equals, an egalitarian republic in idea but an oligarchic aristocracy in practice. ** Gegania struggles against huge elemental storms that rage forth from a maelstrom off the coast. *** Recently, monstrous creatures have emerged from the maelstrom and wreak havoc on the countryside. ** These storms leave behind a precious mineral, stormsalt, that has incredible arcane properties and is the center of the Gegan economy. ** Expect goliaths, dwarves, hill gnomes, and humans to be most numerous among the Geganians, but no Gegan would ever turn away a friend whose broad shoulders or clever insights could help create something truly worthy of their Runes. * Tikeoustos, the Dominion of the Just ** Once the Manwilds knew the sort of relative peace its various tribes, city-states, and colonies only attainable in a land that could provide all its people's needs. A land of no treaties, little war, and a vast network of rivers and dense arboreal groves eventually gave way to the Dominion of the Just. ** The Night Itan Stole the Stars is regarded as the official beginning of Itan the Clearminded's reign and as the birth of the Dominion of the Just. *** After years of brutal war across shifting theaters, Itan reordered the stars in the sky, placing an unmistakable homage to his crown as a constellation in the middle of the new night sky. **** This quickly cowed the more superstitious or religious groups of the Manwilds and forced the hands of the coastal cities into accepting his rule. ** Itan the Clearminded resides in the Crystal Keep, a flawlessly clear castle in the exact center of the Capital City of Clarity. *** From here, he metes out the tenets of the Crystal Law. ** The Crystal Laws are upheld by a vast network of inquisitorial judges and investigators he calls his Senses. ** Expect humans, elves, hobbits, lizardfolk, tabaxi, some goblinoids, and many more of those groups more commonly found in the wilds and woods. *** The City of S'angalla is the only city to be allowed to keep its name and all of its independent military, which it focuses on a plateau sitting over a tiny isthmus to the far west on Tikeoustos. No one knows what it guards, but these aarakocra seem hardly bothered by Itan's trifling. * The Unseeled Kingdom ** Aloof and whimsically astute, the Unseeled Kingdom are keepers of forgotten secrets and guardians of the wild. *** Where Gegan magic is just as ritualistic and hard-learned as all its endeavors, the various fey and sylvan creatures of the Unseeled intuit their way through life and the arcane. *** The Unseeled can be capriciously legalistic, however, drafting all contracts, laws, and agreements in sheets of cold iron - no Unseeled seems to ever wish to break any term so etched, and so Feyfolk have a well-deserved reputation for very technical interpretations, careful drafting, and an affinity for the cleverly-worded loophole. ** Though much of the land is blanketed in dense magical forest and wildruns, the Unseeled consider themselves the most balanced of all possible nations, seamlessly weaving nature's raw beauty with the glories of civilization. *** The sovereign state is ruled from twin capitals - Silver-on-the-Peak, a caldera-set city overseen by the Dawnservant, King Oberron, and Gloam, the home of Queen Maeve and her Dusktree Court. ** The Unseeled Kingdom is known by many names, including the Feywild or the Land of the Seelie, but locals think of it primarily as the Cities-Betwixt-the-Glens. ** In recent years, Itan seemed to set his sights on conquering the Unseeled Kingdom. After several months of saber-rattling, a single star appeared just off-center in Itan's Crown - seeming to halt a few of its roaming stars and causing the Crown to tilt, ever so slightly. ** While strangers aren't unwelcome in the Unseeled Kingdom, anyone not a wood-elf, forest gnome, eladrin, metallic dragonborn, Fey-blooded, Sylvan, or otherwise at home in the twilight of the wood will stick out considerably. * Seastone Isle ** Seastone Isle houses a veritable armada of pirates, unaffiliated merchants, and sailors without a port. ** The Pirates' Collective of the Restless Sea and All Her Shores is a large conglomerate of captains and crews who spend most of the year raiding, pillaging, privateering, and engaging in piracy writ large. *** Once a year, during a two week period of storms that render the seas worldwide too treacherous to sail, the entire Collective gathers on Seastone Isle for the yearly Board Meeting. *** During the Board Meeting, the Captains share their spoils, trade leads and items, and handle any bookkeeping that needs to be done. *** 10% of the year's take is set aside to help any Captain or sailor who is met by tragedy. *** Another 10% is put into a prize pool for the Seastone Games - a weeklong series of competitions for all pirates to enjoy. ** Many merchants and sailors joined Seastone after the Night of Broken Stars. Expect nearly any race to be welcomed here, so long as they can sail. * Drakosthai ** Once home to the mighty Askrellian Empire, Drakosthai is now a land fractured by the scars of a centuries-old civil war. *** A millennia ago, the Drakosthai Empire was united by Askrel, a dragonborn legionnaire who discovered that the country was being manipulated by a shadow-cabal of dragons to keep the small-folk of the realm subjugated. The Askrellian Uprising threw off the yokes of that control with the help of infernal bargains. Askrel became the first Emperor and ushered in an age of expansion and wonders. *** Generations later, as the Askrellian Empire rose and stagnated, the dragons sought to regain their power and a brutal civil war erupted. ** The continent is littered with arcane ruins and magical artifacts, dating back to the heights of the Askrellian Empire's dominance. ** But it is also in a relative dark-age; its inhabitants are mistrusting of one another and feud over various resources and ruins. ** Recently, a horde of Black Orcs has begun to spill over the southern mountains with intent of conquering the former Askrellian Empire. ** Dragonborn, tieflings, orcs, and humans are plentiful here, each with heritages that runs deep through the history of the continent. * Damosthai ** As great as the Askrellian Legionnaires once were, so too was the Askrellian Navy. Its fleets of warships and merchant vessels dotted the horizons for centuries. ** A small group of houses discovered a distant land with rich, old forests and shallow fjords perfect for shipbuilding and drydock work. Damos the Sailmaker was in charge of this small colony that had become the hub for Askrellian trade and naval research when the Askrellian Civil War erupted. ** Rather than mire itself deeply in the wars of its homeland, Damosthai declared its independence and explored westward. ** The Damosthenes and Gegans feuded for several decades of tense diplomatic relations before demonic incursions from within their southern territories forced a tepid alliance. ** Recently the Treaty of Fultimini Pass between Gegania and Damosthai has formalized and stabilized the relationship, resulting in a golden age of exploration and discovery for both nations. ** Tiefling, dragonborn, half-orc, human, hobbit, and dwarves are very common in Damosthai. Some indigenous elves as well as Gegans are also not uncommon. * Byan ** The Elder Empire of Byan, the Dual Monarchy of Dwrav and Elra, Archcounty of the Seams and the Groves ** The Elder Empire is a dual monarchy split between the Dwarves of Dwrav and the Elves of Elra. *** Over a thousand years ago the Dwarves and the Elves were in the middle of a long running war, fighting over a mutual holy ground of a solitary mountain surrounded by deep, untouched forest. As the war again reached a crescendo of violence the Black Orcs from the east smashed into both nations simultaneously. Pushed to the absolute brink by the oncoming black tide, the factions accepted an armistice and allied to beat back the Black Orcs. After the war the two nations had a massive treaty meeting. Over the course of five years the two kingdoms came to an agreement. The nations would unite under one king, but the king would be chosen from each of the royal families. *** The first reign was a joint rule between the two kings who had grown close during the battles against the Black Orcs. When the elven king Swerel died the dwarven king Gav took over for the rest of his natural life, handing the crown to Swerel’s oldest son who Gav utilized as an important ambassador in his court. This precedent set forth the succession of the Elder Kings for the next one thousand years, only disrupted by untimely deaths and unsuccessful coups. ** Elves, dwarves, and ambassadors from all the world over exist here, in the 13th Band's oldest continuous kingdom. * Askrelli Annex ** As Black Orcs and untold horrors spilled over the southern rim of mountains, the people of the former Askrellian Empire organized a mass migration with the only destination they could figure: away. Crossing the Midesar Sea ** Organized into nine Tribes, the Askrelli have slowly migrated for hundreds of years, using huge beasts of burden and an incredibly disciplined system of camp-making to move their entire population. ** As they move, they blot out the land and swallow everything that stands as obstacle before them. ** Each Tribe will travel for months on end before finding a suitable new place in the landscape to set up a Camp, raise new packbeasts, gather supplies, and provide shelter for the other Tribes passing through. In this way, each Camp becomes a link in a chain of leapfrogging nomadic organization. ** This progress has been completely halted in the last 60 years as the Askrelli Tribes have reached a standstill as their mass of people struggles to consume the vast swampland that separates their current Camp, now large enough to be considered a Stop, really, and the Free City of Bothelm. * Bothelm ** Nations and Polities of the 13th Band * Gegania * The Unseeled Kingdom * Tikeoustos, the Dominion of the Just * Pirate Collective of Seastone Isle * Damosthai * The Shattered Empire of Drakosthai * Byan, the Elder Kingdom * Askrelli Annex - lands held by the Askrelli Tribes * Bothelm, Free City and Gem of Askrellia Noteworthy Entities and Places * The Neath * The Esotery * The Askrellian Empire * Eye of Eternity = People of the 13th Band * The Unseeled * Important articles Need help building out this community? * * * * * You can also be part of the larger Fandom family of communities. 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